


Larry Daley's (and Ahkmenrah's) no good, very bad luck

by Bloodcoral



Series: NATM - soulmate AUs [1]
Category: Night at the Museum (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 17:05:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4067797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bloodcoral/pseuds/Bloodcoral
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Larry Daley would be born with unrecognizable hieroglyphs inscribed over his heart. His parents would hold their newborn son and cry for his broken heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Larry Daley's (and Ahkmenrah's) no good, very bad luck

**Author's Note:**

> I was trapped on a flying metal tube for 14 hours and ended up watching Night at the Museum: secret of the tomb because even I can't watch Kingsman on loop for 14 hours. Now I have a new ship *cackles maniacally*. I have no regrets. 
> 
> Story notes:  
> I like the idea of soulmates but am hopelessly romantic in that I assume there is only one (because Plato's the Symposium has stuck with me) if you have one and time and space are no obstacles. So I imagine sometimes people have shit luck and are born centuries apart from their soulmates and end up living knowing they will never meet the great love of their life. 
> 
> Oh and I have no Beta so please let me know if there are (and I'm sure there are) mistakes. Will also take Betas if anyone wants to offer.

***************************************************************************************

When Ahkmenrah was born there were a string of indecipherable symbols inscribed across his heart. 

Much to the consternation of the Pharaoh and his queen; no scholar or priest would be able to make head or tail of the markings and eventually the royal couple would shrug and chalk it up to the mysterious ways of Ra and betroth their son to an appropriate girl of noble birth. 

Soul mates were a luxury a ruler could not afford after all. 

*********************************************************************************

Nearly four thousand years into the future Larry Daley would be born with unrecognizable hieroglyphs inscribed over his heart. His parents would hold their newborn son and cry for his broken heart. 

********************************************************************************

Barely a year into his reign, Ahkmenrah would fall to his brother’s blade. Even as he felt the cold steel of the knife plunge into his back, his brother’s smug smirk fading as his vision dimmed, the only thing Ahkmenrah could think was what a pity he would die without even having met the other half of his soul. 

The shock of waking up again, buried beneath the sands, to his parents’ faces under the glow of the tablet was unexpected. But his, well undead, heart soared because it meant he had hope for the future free from the weight of the throne. 

After the first 50 years trapped beneath the sands with no one but his parents for company the fear began to set in. What if his soul mate had died while Ahkmenrah remained trapped beneath the sands living only a half existence? 

His first attempt to escape failed, as did his second and the hundreds that followed. His father commanded the Anubis guards and Ahkmenrah, no matter how well trained in martial arts was no match for them. 

By four thousand years he had given up – sometimes not even bothering to leave his sarcophagus at night. What did he have to look forward to anyway? Another four thousand years with only his parents for company and the occasional tomb robber? 

And then it all changed. 

***********************************************************************************

Larry Daley hated the words soul-mate more than anything else in the world. It was the reason his mother had always looked at him sadly when she thought he wasn’t looking; the reason the other kids teased him; the reason why the teachers all looked at him with pity. 

So when he met Erica and her unblemished skin and carefree attitude he knew she was perfect. On their third date she had asked him point blank why he was dating her when he had a soul mate and merely paused with her mouth opened in a rounded oh when he had showed her the markings. 

She never looked at him with pity and for that he loved her more. 

Instead, it was Erica who snuck him into the NYU libraries to look for translations. It was Erica who had stayed by his side when he found out his soul mate was so far beyond his reach that it might have been kinder had he been born without one. 

It was Erica who had stuck by him and comforted him. 

Unsurprisingly it was Erica he married. 

Predictably, they divorced within five years. 

************************************************************************************

Cambridge was a revelation, in more ways than one. Ahkmenrah knew the world had changed while he remained under the sands but he could not have imagined it had changed so much. That first night he stepped out of his sarcophagus to the shock of the aging janitor he could only marvel at his new surroundings. 

The culture, the language everything was so new. Well the language wasn’t really new; he had been familiar with some of the letters for the past four thousand years. 

As the realization hit him he laughed until he cried – much to the shock of the night janitor. 

But this explained so much. That’s why no one could read his name. Of course, he had been born four thousand years too early. 

With a single minded determination Ahkmenrah threw himself into learning the language, the culture and this new world. With every new word, every new piece of culture he felt soul slowly mend. 

Soon he had the final piece, Larry Daley. 

He wanted to go find him immediately. Take the tablet and scourer the world so he could be complete. 

Little did he know he would be trapped in his sarcophagus for the next 54 years. 

************************************************************************************

Larry had avoided the Egyptian display after that first night with Teddy. He recognized the inscriptions immediately, Ahkmenrah fourth king of the fourth kingdom, probably his soul mate and definitely a very angry mummy. 

Do people retain their humanity after death? Does the tablet reanimate a corpse? And didn’t the ancient Egyptians remove the brain from their mummies? Could a person even be a person without their brain? 

The questions kept Larry away, that and a healthy dose of fear of what he would find if he opened that sarcophagus. His over active imagination supplied images in techno colour of him finding a shriveled husk, reanimated by magic. That would be worse than having a dead soul mate – he didn’t think he could handle knowing his soul mate was forced into a pitiful half existence, kept from death by a magical tablet. 

But like always, his life never turned out the way he thought it would. 

Of course his life went to hell after Erica divorced him, his inventions never got off the ground and yes, so what if he maybe, sort of gave up on everything he tried, that doesn’t mean he deserved this!

Trapped in a museum where EVERYTHING was alive while a bunch of old, albeit mojo-ed up, night guards framed him for theft while he and his son were trapped with a malicious, probably blood thirsty mummy, who may or may not be his soul mate. 

There was nothing for it. The only way out was to bust their way through the doors and he didn’t think those Anubis statues would do that without a command from their Pharaoh. 

Larry just hoped that the mummy could talk as he pushed away the heavy slab and unclipped the sarcophagus. 

************************************************************************************

Nothing had changed for the past 54 years. Ahkmenrah was still trapped every night and he hated it, he hated the feeling of the air slowly depleting from his sarcophagus, the feeling of slowly suffocating every night. 

But something was different tonight. Something was happening. Ahkmenrah could feel the change in the air, there was a hint of desperation and he struggled harder to push the sarcophagus lid off even knowing the chances of success were non-existent. 

The shock of the lid flying off to slam into the decorative walls stunned him. Taking a gasping breath through the musty bandages he reveled in the fact he could breath again. 

Someone was talking to him, rapid and panicked. Something about his guards whom were about to push their way into the sanctuary to gut the intruders in his tomb. 

Gathering the little air he had taken in, he commanded his guards to stand down. Though they had intruded in his tomb, they had freed him from a 54 year imprisonment where no one else had and he owed them their lives, at least for now. 

Ripping off the bandages so he could see and breathe again, expelling a great cloud of dust into the face of his rescuer. 

“You would not believe how stuffy it is in there.” He said to the incredulous father and son as he took in his changed surroundings. The museum was so different from the sterile environment of the Egyptology department. This place felt like home, a kingdom he could gladly rule. He just needed the tablet. 

*******************************************************************************

Larry was sure his eyes were about to bulge out of his head. 

That was not a mummy under the bandages. God he’s hot was the first unfortunate thought that passed through his mind even as he blinked dust out of his eyes. I’m a moron was the second as Larry manfully resisted the urge to bash his head into a wall for thinking absolutely inappropriate thoughts while TRAPPED IN A MUSEUM and being FRAMED FOR THEFT. 

“You went to Cambridge?” Was out of his mouth before he could control himself, he was starting to feel light headed and more than a little hysterical. At least it was better than ‘why aren’t you a mummy?’ Larry’s mind supplied even as he kicked himself mentally. Not the way to make a good impression. 

Still internally rebuking himself, Larry almost felt his heart stop as the young, VERY YOUNG his mind supplied, Pharaoh turned and flashed a blinding smile introducing himself and waited for Larry to introduce himself and Nick. 

“Uh”. Was the only intelligible sound to come out of his mouth and he saw Nick look at him in askance out of the corner of his eye and gathered himself. “I’m Larry Daley….I think I’m your soul mate?”

Crap…so much for good impressions.


End file.
